


Therapy Sides

by LizLuvsCupcakes



Series: Remus Finds a FamILY [4]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Everyone Has Issues, Gen, Logan doesn’t like feelings, Platonic Intruality, Therapy tw, Unsympathetic Deceit | Janus Sanders, autism mentioned, autistic remus, patton is tired, platonic LAMPR, platonic ceativitwins, remus has internalized ableism, roman has self confidence issues, tw: Remus being remus, virgil hates himself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:42:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25081087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizLuvsCupcakes/pseuds/LizLuvsCupcakes
Summary: Finally! Time to grab some tissues and sort out these issues! The sides go to therapy and sort out their shit, with the help of Dr. Emile Picani, who is a godsend.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Morality | Patton, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Dr. Emile Picani, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dr. Emile Picani, Dark Creativity | Remus “The Duke” Sanders &, Dr. Emile Picani & Dark Creativity | Remus Sanders, Logic | Logan Sanders & Dr. Emile Picani, Morality | Patton Sanders & Dr. Emile Picani
Series: Remus Finds a FamILY [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728466
Comments: 34
Kudos: 113





	Therapy Sides

**Prologue**

On the couch crowded three increasingly nervous sides. Remus and Roman clutched each other with Virgil sandwiched in the middle of them. 

“Are you sure you can handle this?” Asked Virgil, looking as though he was already certain of the answer. 

“Picani is always harder to summon, and bringing him in here?” Roman and Virgil met each other's gaze. Oh god, were they _agreeing_?

Logan and Patton stood in the centre of the commons, both looking determined, yet excited. Or, as excited as Logan ever looked. 

“Absolutely, kiddo. We've summoned the good doctor before, this is pretty much the same thing but with more… well, more moving parts.” Patton turned to Logan with a confident smile “Ready, Freddy?” 

“My name is Logan. And I am prepared, mother bear.”

With a squeal, Patton immediately took his position, and together, they raised their arms up, like they were summoning someone. Except, in the centre of the room, rather than a person rose a door. A glass panel set inside a wooden frame, inside of which, the office of Emile Picani was clearly visible.

The two of them grinned, and turned to the rest of the gang. 

“Okay… who wants to go first?”

Everyone stared at Patton.

  
  


**Patton**

The waiting, he decided, was the worst part of this whole thing. Especially when you were alone.

Granted, the office was fantastic, one of his favourite examples of Roman’s work, really! But… well, it was more the idea of what the room _represented._ Admittedly, the parental side hated the idea of what happened here. What was _supposed_ to happen. Yes, there was an undeniable amount of healing in here, but it hurt worse than any finale of any show he'd ever watched. 

At least Picani didn't go out of his way to make the hurting hurt.

Patton’s eyes wandered across the various pictures tacked to the wall. Hm. The meme-board was new. The “it still hurts, but less” picture of Dipper was admittedly funny but… god, he didn't want it to hurt, _period_. He just wanted to make things be okay. And for some reason, he couldn't help feeling like such a massive failure. Needing help for his kiddos, for himself. He was so pathetic and needy and-

“It's the moment you've been waiting for!”

Oh, who was he kidding? This part always got to him. No matter his state of mind, this part always cheered him up. 

He sat there, smiling as a Picani carried out his series of various da’s and de’s, wondering if it was possible to just claim this song as their own.

As the crescendo hit, Picani finally stepped into the room with a flourish and a dramatic “daaaaa!” And with that, he finally sat down, pencil and notebook in hand and a bright smile on his face that immediately gave way to one of confusion. Still a smile, mind you, but one full of questions. “Patton? What are you doing here?”

“Oh, uh… we shoulda filled you in. So, Elliot, Larry, Dot, they're not actually here this time.”

“What?! No! _My patients_!!” He shook his fists at the sky dramatically as he took on the persona of a distressed cabbage merchant. The pause that followed would have formed a black hole. Picani cleared his throat. “That didn't quite land, I'm sorry. Ah, so if they aren't here, then why am I here?”

Patton shifted, wondering if sinking into the couch was a good idea. No, he couldn't just abandon Emile like this. 

“... Knick-Knack-Patty-Whack, am I to understand that _you're_ my client for today?”

“I guess so.”

Picani squealed and wiggled excitedly in his seat. “Ooooh, I finally get a chance to talk to the fan favourite father figure figment? Fantastic, it's the best day ever!”

Patton turned bright red. “Aw, Emile, everyone knows _Logan’s_ the fan favourite.”

“I think it's telling that out of all the other sides, you chose to deflect the favourite status onto Logan,” the therapist said pointedly, penning something down. 

Patton smiled and made a noncommittal noise. 

“Okay, first off; do you how do?”

Patton shrugged in a very un-Patton like manner. 

“Well, how do you feel?”

“With my hands.”

“Patton, you know I love your dad jokes…”

“I'm sorry, I know.” Patton felt his smile drift off his face, and breathed softly through his nose. “Tired. Overwhelmed. Powerless. Drained. Disillusioned… I could go on.”

“Well, it sounds like you've just generally been feeling blue.”

“I'm always feeling blue.”

“Well, _oooh-ooh-oooh_ , why so blue?”

“It's just, since Remus first moved in, things have been pretty hectic. And it's made me rethink a lot of stuff, and I don't know what to do.”

“I see, so Remus has been causing a lot of _chaos BLASTS!”_

“No! Nononono, it's nothing _he_ did. It's Deceit, he… he's been acting _just slightly shy_ of excellent. And I guess he's been that way for… quite a while. And I just didn't notice.” His voice quavered a bit near the end. But he somehow held it together. Mostly. 

“Aah. And that's just been the mouse nibbling your cheese, huh?”

“Not _just_ me, it's everyone. Roman, Virgil, Logan, Remus…”

“Really? Wow, I've got the whole five-man band to work through. I can see you decided to split up and look for clues?”

“Yeah, it's just, I thought we'd do better if we didn't feel like we had to perform for each other.”

Picani didn't say anything. Somehow that was worse. When he expected you to go on, didn’t even have comment for you. 

“Well, we- the other sides and me- we were hoping to get some talking done, and… we don't think it's the kind of thing we should dump on Thomas.”

“About what?” He asked, in that inquisitive yet clinically polite way psychiatrists have that distracted you from the frantic scribbling of their pencil.

“It's just… ugh. There's been a lot of stuff going on.”

Picani waited; it was always better to let Patton get his thoughts out first and then help him sort them out once all of the bits and pieces were there on the floor. 

“... ever since Remus moved in, things have been… uncomfortable. And I always knew that was gonna happen, but I dunno, I guess I figured it'd be Remus _himself_ making us uncomfortable.”

“Ah yes, him and his love of all things Ren and Stimpy. Probably screaming about guts, or something…”

“Yeah, but the thing is, it hasn’t been anything he did himself, it’s just been a bunch of stuff he's told us about Deceit, and some of the stuff Deceit did that we actually _saw_ … it's been terrible.”

“I see. Tell me, how's your little garbage man integrating into your Sanders Clan?”

“Remus has been… well, for the most part, he's fantastic, y'know, he's making the best of a bad situation, but… well, he's just been throwing these tantrums that get a little bit-” Patton hugged himself loosely, looked guilty for what he wanted to say, then admitted, “- _scary._ Emile, they're scaring me, and the others, and they're getting worse and more frequent and I just wanna fix it.”

Emile looked very interested indeed, now scribbling so quickly one might assume his pen would ignite the page. “Do you think you can be a bit more descriptive, what do these tantrums look like?”

“Well, he starts screaming at us mostly, then if he can get away he'll usually lock himself in his room, or the imagination… I found him in a closet once. I can deal with that, mostly, and when he starts rocking himself back and forth and crying and rubbing his arms and stuff… it's just, gosh, when he hurts himself, it can be tough.”

“Hurts himself? How?”

“Well, I've only ever seen him do it a few times, but I know he'll hit himself on the head if he's really frustrated, or upset, or just overwhelmed, or he'll start biting on his hands if he can't do that. And he says it makes him feel better and that it doesn't hurt, and I support him if that's true, but… god, I can _hear_ it, and he leaves these _bruises_ , and it's just so horrible to watch.”

Picani was furiously scribbling down notes on a separate sheet of paper. “So, the biting, the hitting… does he do that a lot?”

“Just when he's upset. But he's never hit or bitten us, at least, not in earnest,” he insisted hastily, as if afraid Picani would tell him to hurl his kiddo into The Chasm for their safety.

Picani looked puzzled. “Patton, have you ever noticed Remus refusing to eat certain things, or touch certain things…?”

Patton furrowed his brow and thought hard. “Well… I guess he doesn't like a lot of bright lights, and he mentioned once that drilling into his teeth bothered him. Oh, and he doesn't like onions. You'd have to ask him if there's anything else, though. Why?”

“Okay. Good information. Patton, in the future, I'd like you to start referring to these episodes you described as ‘meltdowns’ rather than tantrums, okay?”

“Huh? Why?”

“Well, I'd need to ask him, but it sounds to me like these episodes are the result of some kind of emotional or sensory overload, probably due to more than just the factors at hand. And calling them tantrums would be just a major Pearl move.”

“Excuse me, what?”

“Oh, uh, Steven Universe Future, are you up on that?”

“No?” Patton had wanted to watch the movie for the longest time, but Roman listened to the soundtrack with Remus exactly once, an ordeal that prompted the prince to inform his papa that it may not be a good idea. 

“Well, long story short, Steven starts manifesting these powers where he glows pink, becomes super strong, fast and enduring, and even summon these weird hexigon shields that are stronger than his usual shield.”

“Sounds neat.”

“You'd think so, but see, the kicker is that these powers only manifest when Steven is experiencing an overload of cortisol that his Gem half is reacting to. So coupled with his canonical ptsd, I don't think I need to tell you it leads to some preeeeeetty nasty Bismuth.”

“Oof.”

“Exactly. One episode even happens during an argument with Greg, which leads Steven to crashing the van with Greg inside it.”

“No!”

“Yes and! He and Greg are both fine, but Pearl without a second thought begins scolding Steven, telling him that ‘these pink outbursts’ as she calls them are getting out of control. To which Steven screams-”

Stevens' voice cut in, clear and sharp and absolutely haunting. _“It's not AN OUTBURST!!!”_ Patton immediately felt his heart ache, for both Steven and his son, and felt, somehow, like an even worse excuse for a father. 

“Oh my god…”

“That exchange with Pearl, Garnet and Amethyst doesn't get much better. Pearl can only focus on how dangerous these outbursts are, how scary they are, Garnet can only make cryptic statements about what it ‘seems’ like Steven wants-”

Garnet’s voice this time. Judgemental and cold and empty and uncaring. _“It looks like Steven is trying to avoid a serious discussion about this all together.”_

Patton chewed the ends of his fingertips without really thinking about it. “Have I been doing that…?”

“Definitely not, Patton, here's where I draw the parallel. In that scene, Pearl and Garnet were so focused on how scary and dangerous Steven’s pink glowing episodes were, that they forgot to acknowledge the effect they were having on Steven. They even decide to lay a couple of these gems-”

_“We need to do something about this before someone gets hurt!”_

_“Don't let this power control you. You're better than this.”_

“-until Steven can't take it a second longer and runs away.”

Patton spluttered a moment before he responded. “‘Before someone’-? Wha- but- they- _Steven_ was already hurt!!”

“And BINGO was his name-o. But Pearl and Garnet were so focused on the fear they were experiencing when Steven had an episode, as well as the danger that they failed completely to read Steven. Check on Steven. See how Steven’s doing.”

“I hope I'm not that bad, I just want Remus to be okay,” he said beseechingly, terror creeping up in his throat. Oh god, did his kiddos see him this way? Condescending, chastising and exceptionally unhelpful?

“I definitely see that, Patton. The only reason I bring up the parallel is because I feel like you got good intentions, but at the same time, if you're not careful, it'll be really easy to go down a Slippery Soap.”

“I know. I just… I don't know how I should help him.”

Picani arched an eyebrow. “Is that completely your job?”

“I dunno. It's just, I guess it feels like it might be.”

“Why do you feel like that?”

“I dunno, I just… I used to talk to Deceit sometimes. Like, sometimes Logan wouldn't know what to do about Thomas Stuff, and then he'd show up and he'd have just… well, granted a lot of his ideas were really bad, but every so often, he'd have one I could tell Thomas to use and not feel all yucky about. But now I know what he's like and Virgil told me about this terrible stuff that happened when he was growing up with him, and now with Remus, and… and I can't see him anymore, it makes me feel all mad and sad and stupid. Like… every time I see him, every time he talks to me, I think, ‘Patton, he hurt your kids and you didn't do enough to stop it.’”

“That seems a tad unfair. You didn’t know about it, right?”

“Well, no, but I didn’t bother to ask. He just mentioned he took pieces off of Logan and me and a bit of Roman one day, but I still had all my fingers and toes, and I made sure Logan and Roman did too, so I didn’t worry about it.” He released a deep, shuddering sigh. “I… god, _why_ didn’t I worry about it?”

His eyes were burning and before he could stop himself he released a sob. “And… and that’s before…”

“Before-?”

“Well, deceit showed up to talk to me alone yesterday…” he hadn’t been able to prepare. He’d just been in the kitchen alone, then deceit had just been there and wouldn’t leave until Patton talked to him. 

“Go on.”

“It was a while ago. I don’t remember what his idea was cuz I just… i was too mad to hear anything, I just, I looked at him and I thought of everything he did to Virgil and Remus, and I said-”

Patton froze. The fanders were going to hear all of this. Did deceit really deserve to have his shot at redemption taken from him when he wasn’t even there to defend himself?

“What’d you say, Patton?”

“I… I said, ‘deceit, I don't wanna hear another gosh darn word out of your ever-flapping gobstopper-’” his throat abruptly tightened and he gasped sharply. “... then he told me I'm stupid, and I said ‘so stupid I don't hurt people who love me?’ And then he laughed and said, ‘I did nothing more or less than what was necessary, you never once cleared the bar.’ He said I didn't have any of my priorities in order and that's why I feel all tired and sad all the time, and then I got so mad I… I threw him out.”

This had not been Patton’s Proudest Point in Pointed Conversation, and worse, it had made deceit seem right. Not just to him, but to deceit, whose smirk as he was pushed out still made him so, so mad to think about.

And yet...

“Has Deceit been back since then?” Picani asked softly, extending a stuffed animal to Patton (a dog shaped Squishmallow).

“No, and… and I’m kinda scared he won’t, but not as scared as I am he will,” Patton admitted, taking the toy in his arms and burying his face in it. “Cuz, if he’s gone forever and he’s not coming back then I sent him away and it’s my fault and I threw away any chance to help him, all because looking at him made me feel yucky, but… I dunno. I miss him, but I don’t miss what it feels like when he’s around.”

“What’s it feel like when he’s around?”

“Well… I wanna yell more. And I feel sadder and madder and it’s harder to breathe, and I don’t feel like I know anything. I’d miss him, but I wouldn’t miss _that!_ ”

Picani paused. Then asked, “do you think you’d really miss him?”

Patton was in agony. His face was bright red, and he was well aware of the twin trails of tears leaking from his glistening eyes as he stewed in rage and guilt and shame and sadness. “I… I don’t know, I mean, he’s one of my kiddos, but… but I don’t think I _want_ him to be, but he still deserves a dad and… And _I don’t know!!!”_ He screamed into the stuffed animal, which Emile was growing ever more glad to have given him. 

That scream was everything Patton was. Everything he’d been bottling up for the past month or two of learning terrible thing after terrible thing about Deceit’s parenting, and Remus and Virgil’s abysmal shared childhood, and everything else he’d had to manage with Thomas’s life and the near-death experience and the sheer terror of needing emergency surgery… all of it had been a lot to deal with. And it all came out in one primal, desperate scream into a soft toy. 

It took awhile for Patton to draw himself out, mainly due to the embarrassment of having just screamed into a doll in front of Emile, but mostly because… well, it was nice. The fabric and the soft body of the stuffed dog pressed against his red, damp face was nice. But he didn’t want to get tears and snot all over it, so he sat up, whereupon Emile immediately provided him tissues. 

“Patton, I think I’ve sorely misjudged you,” he said softly and gently. “I don’t think you’re the Pearl to Remus’s Steven.”

“You don’t?” He squeaked out as he mopped his face. 

“No. I think Deceit is the Jasper to your Steven.”

Patton was confused, but he listened. Anything so he wasn’t failing Remus. 

_But if you were failing Remus, wouldn’t you want to know? Pathetic._

“You see, in Steven Universe Future, Jasper’s whole deal is being the one person Steven didn’t help. They even have this exchange in the very first episode-

_“Stop trying to help those tiny flapping earthlings and fight me!!”_ Jasper’s voice filled the air, angry and demanding. 

_“I’ll never stop trying to help them-_ or _you!”_ Steven returned with the patience of a saint.

“But see, Steven _can’t_ help Jasper. He just has too much repressed, and she continuously pushes him into situations where his negative feelings are brought forward, rather than shoving them aside like he usually does.”

“Hm,” said Patton, because there was nothing else to say. 

“In fact, you could argue that the main driving conflict of the series was kickstarted because she demanded that he fight her and calls him out to his face.”

“ _I don’t_ need _your help. You’re the one that needs help. You think you’ve beaten me, but you’ve never beaten me on your own. You’ve always been a_ fusion _. You’ve always had your_ friends! _Because you’re_ nothing _without them. You think everyone needs help. But it’s only you. No one is as pitiful as_ **_you.”_ **

“That’s… that’s so…” Patton didn’t know what to make of this. It was all so accurate. Was Picani making this up to relate to him?

“As Steven has his breakdown over the course of the show, one of the people he goes to for help is actually Jasper, because he figures if he couldn’t help her, maybe she was doing something right. And maybe she had the answer to feeling better.”

“What happened…?” 

“Well, he spends time training with Jasper, but their relationship is so toxic, what with her need for a leader and his need for self punishment, that he hurts her by accident. And I think that’s when Steven realized he couldn’t have a relationship with Jasper, and asked her to find something better to do with her life. And she does.”

“Oh…”

“Do you think Steven failed Jasper?”

“No. No, helping Jasper would be too much for anyone. And… and it must’ve really hurt her…”

“Does that make it a less valid thing to need?”

“N-no,” Patton said thickly as snot began drying. 

“Patton? I think you’re smarter than Steven. I think you can see that you and deceit aren’t going anywhere, and it’s just going to end with you both getting hurt. I know you want to help everyone, Patton. But you need to understand that you can’t help people if they don’t wanna be helped. You’ll just end up both getting hurt.”

“I… I think I get it. Deceit is like a broken mirror. It’s better to leave it where it is than to hurt myself trying to fix it?”

Emile smiled. “Amazing world of gumball?”

“Yeah.”

“Patton, I think that’s our time for today. Will I be seeing you again?”

“Yeah. I think that’d be best.”

“Looks like Tomma’s got a brand new show!”

Patton grinned. “We’re gonna make _so_ many people mad,” he said, trying to hand the doll back. 

“Keep her,” Emile insisted. Then he conjured an identical doll and put it where that one had been. 

With that, Patton and his new dog squishmallow walked out, feeling lighter and calmer than he had in a long time. 

**Author's Note:**

> https://pinkchubbiebunnie.tumblr.com/post/176715466324/how-to-handle-an-autistic-meltdown-as-a-care-giver
> 
> @pinkchubbiebunnie on tumblr
> 
> https://lavender-sprinkles.tumblr.com/post/172676688031/what-true-autistic-support-looks-like
> 
> @lavender-sprinkles on tumblr
> 
> https://dysautonomiadventures.tumblr.com/post/155856827299/meltdown-vs-shutdown
> 
> @dysautonomiadadventures on tumblr
> 
> https://dysautonomiadventures.tumblr.com/post/155856827299/meltdown-vs-shutdown
> 
> @caryssparkles on tumblr
> 
> https://caryssparkles.tumblr.com/post/164964768613/what-to-do-after-a-meltdown
> 
> @geekysciencemom on tumblr
> 
> https://geekysciencemom.tumblr.com/post/162632569317/what-is-autistic-burnout-a-guide-from-autistic
> 
> https://awn-network.tumblr.com/post/162483091450/hello-could-you-please-give-me-some-tips-on-how
> 
> All my sources for this thing; the Jasper stuff is my own interpretation that I bet you hate (:


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